Let’s not turn the clock into a controversy

For the past couple of weeks we’ve shared some ideas about the Liverpool Clock Campaign which aims to erect a Victorian-style timepiece at Washington Park Point at the intersection of Oswego and First streets.

The brainchild of local businessman Jack Fisher, the clock campaign raised nearly $30,000 of its needed $35,000, and on June 17, village trustees voted unanimously in favor of making up the difference. They scraped up five grand from a federal “multi-modal” grant administered through New York state and designed to improve transportation around and about Washington Park.

Mayor Gary White explained that the village would draw the money from $29,000 remaining from the original $305,677 grant awarded 12 years ago.

Regardless of the mayor’s found-money explanation, some village residents have labeled the trustees’ action as irresponsible, frivolous, in essence a waste of money.

I disagree.

The Liverpool Clock Campaign clearly spelled out its noble intentions: to inspire village pride, community and history.

And isn’t that exactly what the trustees should be promoting in every action they undertake? Of course, it is.

Five large is a small price to pay for a visible, tangible village asset that will warmly welcome the thousands of motorists cruising daily through Heid’s Corner.

Current context

Let’s put this current controversy in context. Ever since Fisher announced the effort and began raising money last year, we have heard from the naysayers.

“Why do we need that clock?”

“Don’t we already have a village clock on the First Presbyterian steeple?”

“Who’s going to pay when the new clock needs fixing?”

At first I myself posed some of these same questions, but I soon realized that the Liverpool Clock Campaign deserves our support.

I’ve never even met Jack Fisher, but I know he’s a man of vision. The way I hear it, after seeing similar antique-y clocks in East Syracuse and North Syracuse, he became convinced that Liverpool should have one too.

While many of us would have let the idea die on the vine, Fisher refused to drop the project even though he could’ve made more money attending more closely to his multi-faceted construction business at 4684 Wetzel Road. Since 1970, Fisher Companies have servicing and developers, railroad facilities and municipal and private customers.

Last month, Fisher told YNN that the clock campaign “makes a statement for the village. It’s something that residents and people who work and live here can look at and say ‘We did that.’ And they can look at the bricks later that are engraved here, and it’s going to be here forever.”

Man of vision

Here’s another reason I know Jack Fisher is a man of vision. His business slogan is “whatever it takes.”

Whatever he decides to do gets done.

That’s why I urged the Liverpool Is The Place Committee to donate $50 to the clock campaign. The committee and other $50 donors will be recognized with engraved bricks placed at the base of the clock tower.

After all, we’re all in this together.

Other area businesses including Nichols Supermarket, The Retreat and Dr. Mike Romano have contributed hundreds of dollars to make the clock a reality.

If you’d like to donate, email liverpoolclockcampaign@gmail.com, or call Bridgette Plessas at 652-3773.

Skeptics swarm

But many Liverpudlians are nothing if not skeptical. Visionaries make them nervous.

Take for instance school Superintendent Nick Johns or Liverpool Public Library Director Jean Armour Polly. Because they’re willing and able to take a fresh look at the future and actually suggest changes, they both suffer the slings and arrows of community critics.

Now it’s Fisher’s turn.

Sure, it’s a bumpy road to progress, but Jack Fisher knows a thing or two about how to smooth the grade.